Chilling out in Dubrovnik

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Thursday (26/8/2010)
We started our Croatian leg of the journey considerably later and slower then planned and with stinking hangovers. We headed to the beach for a swim with Rory. It was a beautiful warm morning, cloudless blue skies, crystal clear warm (enough) water. After our swim Rory headed back to catch a ferry to one of the islands and we chilled out on the pebble beach making the most of the sun.
We grabbed some lunch and headed back for a quick change before we ventured into the old town. Not accustomed to the heat (and starting to wonder how we would survive our first summer back in Australia.. nothing to do with the hangover) we took the bus into the Old Town. First stop was ice cream from Dubrovnik’s original ice creamery.. delicious. We wandered through the walled old town past the huge fountain and along the marbled floor flanked by overpriced boutique shops. We planned on doing the walking tour of the wall but both exhausted and believing it was overpriced we agreed to skip it for an early dinner at a lovely seafood restaurant (Fortunately take 2 was a lot better.. amazing mussels!).

Friday
We set off early hoping to bet the crowds into the Old Town and make a quick stop at the internet café. Having not found the internet café obscurely pointed out on our mad tour from the bus station we continued into town on foot. Which was a lot further then we realized and bloody hot even at 9am in the morning.
We made it to town and discovered you needed tickets to climb the wall (hence the walking tour the night before would have been bloody good value.. teach us for being tight arses!). The old town was even busier then the night before, packed with massive tourist groups. We decided to climb the walls anyway, admiring the craftsmanship of the walls built in between the 12th and 17th centuries, spanning nearly 2km and right on the edge of the ocean. Posing the question exactly how did they build them.. should have done the tour and might have found out!
After navigating the walls we set off in search of the famous ‘Buza Bar’ accessed by a hole in the wall. We found it easily and taking the opportunity for swim and jump from the rocks. Ready to go again we set off to book some ferry tickets for our next few days. After a bus and a bit of a hike between the bus station and port we couldn’t buy them without our passports anyway (this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we would have bought them for the slower car ferry not knowing about the fast passenger ferry yet!). So we headed back into the old town for another swim and pricy drink at Buza Bar but worth it for the awesome views.
After our swim we hired some sea kayaks and set off on our own sunset cruise to Lokrum, the small island just off Dubrovnik. We cruised between the island and the Old town, past Buza Bar I and II, the port and a still packed city beach. Round the corner we admired the extravagant yachts returning just as the sun set over the old town.
We sampled some more Dubrovnik ice cream ( deciding it was ok to have dessert first) and caught the bus to our room whipping up a chicken salad for dinner.

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